


A Guide to Tagging in Supernatural Fandom

by afterandalasia



Category: Multi-Fandom, Supernatural
Genre: Fanwork Research & Reference Guides, How Do I Tag, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-31 10:47:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6467257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterandalasia/pseuds/afterandalasia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tagging can be pretty daunting (I still look at those empty spaces nervously sometimes). This guide was written for Supernatural fandom in particular, but contains more general tips and suggestions on how you can tag your fics to get the most out of AO3's tagging system.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Basics: Fandoms, Relationships, Characters and Freeforms

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, folks! There might be some people out there who know that I am a wrangler for AO3. I see a lot of people, both on the site and off, looking for help with tagging their fics, and I figured that it might be worth writing up one for Supernatural fandom in particular as it's one of the biggest fandoms at the moment.
> 
> There are other guides out there, both general ones and other fandom-specific ones. As far as I know, however, there is not one for Supernatural.
> 
> This is cross-posted and adapted from [spnwrangling](spnwrangling.tumblr.com/post/97081715962/) on tumblr; I am the original author of that as well.
> 
> Feel free to ask me questions in the comments! I will do my best to answer them.

Having seen people lament a lack of guides before (and felt the terror of looking at a blank set of tag fields), I figured that some people might like a guide to help them get a feel for how to tag.

 

 **Fandoms**  
  
Tagging for Supernatural is pretty easy - just type **Supernatural** into the fandoms box. Ta-da! Since you only need to enter one tag per fandom, that’s all there is to it.  
  
Writing a crossover? Type in _one_ tag for _each_ of the fandoms that you’re writing - for example **Teen Wolf (TV)** or **Doctor Who (2005)**. If you wait a second or two each time you type on in, but before you hit enter, you get a drop-down menu showing what fandoms already exist - if yours is there, go ahead and choose it! This makes it as easy as possible for people to find your fic.  
  
On that note, avoid smushnames such as Superwholock or Superwolf. They go into No Media, and are very difficult to find after that. It doesn’t help you find readers, or readers find you.  
  
Writing a fusion? Tag for the characters that you’re using - that’s what people are going to be interested in. So if you’re writing a fusion where Dean and Castiel are in the His Dark Materials universe, tag for Supernatural - and leave the fusion fandom for the freeforms. The fusion folks will thank you for it.

 

 

 **Relationships**  
  
Oh yes, it's a big draw for fanfiction. Once again, you only need to enter _one_ tag for each relationship. e.g.  
  
**Castiel/Dean Winchester**  
**Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester**  
**Charlie Bradbury/Dorothy Baum**  
**Lucifer/Michael (Supernatural)**  
  
If the character has a surname, it’s best to use it, otherwise your fic could easily get lost. Someone searching on Castiel/Anna Milton  _won’t_ pick up a fic tagged Anna/Cas. So being specific pays off.  
  
When we make tags canonical, we put the names in _alphabetical_ order. So the tag doesn’t indicate who tops, or reflect any other patterns. This means that putting in tags like Top!Cas/Bottom!Dean won’t make a difference - again, you’re better off saving this for the freeforms, where people will be able to search on them

  
  
**Characters**  
  
Putting in relationships does _not_ automatically list the characters, so it is well worth doing this separately. The usual rules apply - putting in _one_ tag for each character, and using their surname if they have one, is the best way to help people find your fic. e.g.  
  
**Castiel (Supernatural)**  
**Dean Winchester**  
**Sam Winchester**  
**Garth Fitzgerald IV**  
**Abaddon (Supernatural)**  
  
If a character only has one name, there will be a (Supernatural) on the end of their name to mean the Supernatural one. There are even a few characters, like Amy Pond (Supernatural) and Pamela Barnes (Supernatural) who have a surname and the fandom because there’s another character out there that shares the name. Again, it’s worth using that drop-down menu to check that you’ve got the right character.

After over three hundred episode, we also have some characters who never got surnames. This can be frustrating for everyone involved! So Robin, Dean's girlfriend from when he was in the boys' home? She's **Robin (Supernatural: Bad Boys)** so that people can find out who you mean easily.

When someone is being possessed, we sort the tag according to the person doing the possessing, rather than the meatsuit. So if Lucifer is wearing Sam Winchester to the prom at the moment, we have a tag for **Lucifer (Sam Winchester)**.  
  
Like with the relationships, we only create _one_ tag for each character. So putting in Female Sam Winchester or Alpaca Garth Fitzgerald IV won’t show up when people are searching. This is still better off in the freeforms.

  
  
**Freeforms**  
  
Now, this is the fun part. You can put anything you want in freeforms, and wranglers will do their best to help people be able to search on it. That said, there are some tags which we call _unwrangleable_ , and which people are not able to search on. It’s no use putting these in freeforms:

    * Fandoms


    * Relationships


    * Characters



  
Notice anything about the list? It’s the categories above. Basically, freeforms are for anything that _wasn’t_ covered in the previous sections. But that still leaves you with an amazing variety of tags that you can create to tell people what is in your fic. Think of freeforms as your advertising space.  
  
So, what tags do you want to use to draw people in? Well, if I tried to list everything, I’d be here all day, but here are some suggestions for what you might want to use.

 

  * Is your fic **Canon Compliant** , or does it exist in an **Alternate Universe**? It’s worth being specific about what sort of Alternate Universe it is, to let your readers know what’s going on. Whether it’s **Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence** , **Alternate Universe - Ancient Egypt** , or **Alternate Universe - Firefighters** , there’s a pretty good chance that a tag exists for it. And if not, well, it’s easy enough to make one!



 

  * If your tag is in the canon universe, when is it set? You can specify season, e.g. **Season/Series 09** , or you can specify episode, e.g. **Episode: s05e19 Hammer of the Gods**.


    * You can also specify relative to episode, especially in Supernatural fandom. Whether that's **Pre-Episode: s04e01 Lazarus Rising** , or **Post-Episode: s05e22 Swan Song** , you can be precise about when you are setting your fic.


    * You can also specify if you're changing what happened in an episode, e.g. **Episode AU: s05e22 Swan Song** , or if a fic has spoilers for an episode, e.g. **Spoilers for Episode: s09e23 Do You Believe in Miracles?**



 

  * What genre is your fic? Is it **Romantic Fluff** , **Survival Horror** , or straight up **Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot**? Does it have **Angst** , **Feels** , or a combination thereof? These sort of tags are great for giving people a broad idea of what your fic is like.



 

  * Does your fic have any **Sexual Content**? Obviously, that’s a big draw for a lot of people! If the sex is a major part of your fic, it’s worth being more specific, for example:


    * What sex acts are taking place? We’ve got the old suspects like **Anal Sex** , **Vaginal Sex** , **Blow Jobs** and **Cunnilingus** , but it’s always worth considering that readers might be looking for something like **Intercrural Sex** or **Breast Fucking**.


    * Where is the sex taking place? Is is **Alley Sex** , **Library Sex** , **Kitchen Sex**? We’ve got tags for a pretty good range of places.


    * Are there any **Sex Toys**? Feel free to specify!


    * Of course, this wouldn’t be Supernatural if the Impala didn’t get in on the action from time to time. But is it **Sex On The Impala** , **Sex In The Impala** , or **Sex With The Impala**? Sometimes the devil is in the details.


    * You can also specify who tops, who bottoms, or whether they switch! But remember, **Dom Dean Winchester** might still be **Bottom Dean Winchester** \- topping and bottoming aren't the same as domming and subbing.



 

  * Is there any **Violence** or **Character Death** in your fic? Remember, for some people this is an enticement rather than a warning! These sort of things are spread over several trees, so it might be worth looking around.


    * _Major Character Death_ is one of our big warnings, but obviously that’s not the only death-related warning you might want to give. So if there’s **Child Death** , or **Everybody Dies** , you might want to let your readers know.


    * Similarly, _Graphic Depictions of Violence_ is one of the big four, but if you’ve got **Non-Graphic Violence** , you can still let people know. You can also specify if you’ve got **Domestic Violence** , **Killing** , or even **Brutality** making its way into your fic.


    * Other tags you might find useful include **Blood** , **Gore** ,  **Torture** , **Hurt** and **Injury**.



 

  * Of course, Supernatural is nothing if not prone to containing **Supernatural Elements** and **Mythical Beings & Creatures**.


    * Any creatures worthy of note? This can range from **Angels** and **Demons** to **Vampires** and **Weresharks**.


    * Does your fic have any **Magic**?


    * Of course, this being Supernatural, we have the hunters as well. **Supernatural Hunters** is pretty much the name of our game.



 

  
Most of the above tags come from No Fandom. But what about tags more specific to Supernatural? Well, they tend to fall into a few categories as well. Remember that it’s always worthwhile to use the names **Castiel** , **Dean Winchester** and **Sam Winchester** when tagging - it gets you the most hits!

  * What species are the characters? Do you have **Vampire Castiel** , **Angel Dean Winchester** and **Werewolf Sam Winchester** walking into a bar? (If anyone knows the punchline to that, answers on a postcard please.)


  * Of course, you could always be looking at **Animal Dean** instead. Be it dog, cat, horse or octopus, there’s a chance that we’ve got a tag waiting for you.


  * What jobs do your characters do? We’ve got tag from **Bartender Dean Winchester** to **Porn Star Sam** , from **Doctor Gabriel** to **Astrophysicist Castiel**. And if the tag you’re looking for isn’t there yet? Create it! You never know what the next trend will be.


  * What age are your characters? It’s worth checking out the tags we’ve got for **Young Castiel** , **Young Dean** , and **Young Sam** to help you let people know exactly what’s going on in your fic.


  * Gender and sexuality can be of great interest for readers. Whether you’ve got **Gay Dean** , **Bisexual Castiel** , **Demisexual Sam** or **Pansexual Gabriel** , be sure to let us know. Of course, tags like **Female Sam Winchester** have been round for a while now, but did you know we also have tags like **Always Female Castiel** or **FTM Dean**?


  * Are you writing a fic with **Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics**? We have Alpha, Beta and Omega tags for most of our characters nowadays!


  * How are your characters feeling today? Does your fic feature **Sarcastic Castiel** , **Frustrated Sam** , or **Horny Dean**? Probably not all in the same fic, but you never know.


  * Last but not least, what are the characters doing? Did you want to let your readers know that **Castiel Drives** , **Dean Flirts** , or **Sam Leaves for Stanford**? The freeforms is aplace to do just that.



  
  
Of course, even this is not an exhaustive list of freeforms (or even the sort of freeforms) which are available. In Supernatural alone, we have over two thousand freeform tags! Multiply that across the archive, and really it’s pretty much an embarrassment of riches to use to tag your fics. And there’s nothing to stop you from making new ones!


	2. When Relationships go Freeform: How to Give More Information

So, in chapter one, I talked about how the best way to tag is to only put in one tag per relationship, using only the names, for example:

> **Castiel/Dean Winchester**   
>  **Dean Smith/Sam Wesson**   
>  **Gabriel/Lucifer (Supernatural)**   
>  **Charlie Bradbury/Gilda**

But what if you want to give more information about the relationships? Maybe you want to say that you’ve got **Castiel/Dean Winchester Fluff** , or **Unrelated Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester**. Maybe you just want to say that you’ve got extra, minor pairings that don’t appear in your main tags. Well, this is the current solution: freeforms. 

In relationships, AO3 link all variations to one tag - so people can find everything in the same place! But if you want to give more information about the relationship, you can still do it in freeforms. We currently have more than 200 of these tags, and we’re adding more as we find them.

Basically, as long as it’s a _modified relationship_ , that is a relationship containing more than just the character names, it’s eligible to be made a tag.

Examples of what you can do:

Indicate a background or inferred ship.

> **Minor Castiel/Sam Winchester**   
>  **Implied Benny Lafitte/Dean Winchester**

Place the relationships in time or in the fic.

> **Pre-Lucifer/Sam Winchester**   
>  **Past Anna Milton/Dean Winchester**   
>  **Eventual Gabriel/Sam Winchester**   
>  **Endgame Castiel/Dean Winchester**   
>  **Slow Build Castiel/Dean Winchester**

Let us know what stage the relationship is at.

> **Beginnings of Castiel/Dean Winchester**   
>  **Established Crowley/Bobby Singer**   
>  **Jessica Moore and Sam Winchester Get Married**   
>  **Married Castiel/Sam Winchester**   
>  **Castiel/Dean Winchester Anniversary**   
>  **Gabriel & Sam Winchester Are Parents**

Or say something about what aspect of the relationship we get to see.

> **Castiel/Dean Winchester Angst**   
>  **Crowley/Dean Winchester Smut**   
>  **Cute Gabriel/Sam Winchester**   
>  **Domestic Castiel/Sam Winchester**   
>  **Gabriel/Sam Winchester Fluff**   
>  **Castiel/Dean Winchester Kissing**   
>  **Castiel/Dean Winchester Cuddles**

It’s also possible to build warnings (or enticements, this is fandom) into your tags.

> **Non-Consensual Lucifer/Sam Winchester**   
>  **Underage Castiel/Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester**   
>  **Non-Con/Rape Outside of Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester**   
>  **Character Death Outside of Castiel/Dean Winchester**

You can even give more information about platonic relationships in freeforms.

> **Castiel & Crowley Friendship**   
>  **Castiel & Sam Winchester Bonding**   
>  **Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester Are Brothers**

That looks like a lot of tags, but it’s only about 10% of the modified relationship tags that we already have! And there is nothing stopping you - or us - from creating more of them in the future.

Go forth and tag! We enjoy seeing what comes of it.


	3. Metatags And Subtags: Getting The Most From Tagging

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter gets a bit more complicated, and talks a bit more about things from a wrangler's perspective.
> 
> The general gist? Tag specific, search broad.

One of the biggest tools that wranglers have is the ability to make metatags and subtags. This allows us to structure things in groups - and allows taggers and searchers to take shortcuts.

Our general advice is: _tag specific, search broad_. As a tagger, you probably want your tag to show up in as many places as possible; as a searcher, you probably want to find as many appropriate fics as possible.

 

 

So, that looks like a lot of information; let’s break it down a bit.

At the top, we have _Parent tags (more general)_. This is generally the fandom in which the tag sits. So **Babysitting** is in No Fandom, basically where everyone can use it.

Next is _Tags with the same meaning_. We also call these _synonyms_. If you click on one of those tags, it will link you back to **Babysitting**.

Now we get to the fun bit. Some tags will have a section for _Metatags_ , but we’re looking at a top-level tag so it’s only got _Subtags_. So the full tree would look like this:

> Babysitting   
> >Alternate Universe - Babysitting   
> >Babysitter Castiel   
> >Babysitter Harry   
> >Babysitter Louis   
> >Babysitter Sam   
> >Babysitter Stiles Stilisnki   
> >Babysitter Derek Hale   
> >Babysitter Dean   
> >>Babysitter Dean Winchester

So we would say that **Babysitter Dean** is a subtag of **Babysitting** , and **Babysitter Dean Winchester** is a subtag of **Babysitter Dean**.

So how does this help you guys?

Well, if you’re tagging a fic, it pays to tag with **Babysitter Dean Winchester**. This is because anyone searching for **Babysitter Dean** also gets its subtags. Two tags for the price of one! Even better, anyone searching for **Babysitting** will get fics for **Babysitter Dean Winchester** into the bargain.

Basically, if you use a specific tag, your fic will show up not only in the search for that tag, but in all of its metatags. Maximum visibility, minimum tagging.

If you’re searching for a fic, however, it’s worth remembering that not everyone does tag specifically. So if you are looking for fics where Dean Winchester is a babysitter, it’s probably worth checking out the **Babysitter Dean** tag.

With some characters - John, Sam, Adam, anyone with a fairly common name - you might want to tailor your search a little. For example, searching for **Sam Winchester** in the character field and **Asexual Sam** in the additional tags might well give you more results than just **Asexual Sam Winchester** , while filtering out the tags about Sam Wilson.

One last thing - this isn’t just true of freeforms. It’s always worth tagging **John Winchester** rather than just **John** , or tagging **Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester** rather than **Dean/Sam** (it turns out that Dean has been paired with three different Sams over the years).

The short version? **_Tag specific, search broad_** , and you can make the tags do the work for you.


End file.
